enly in the history of
Buddhism as something exotic, grafted adroitly on the parent trunk but
sometimes overgrowing it.[552]
Avalokita is also connected with Amitabha's paradise. His figure,
though its origin is not clear, assumes distinct and conspicuous
proportions in India at a fairly early date. There appears to be no
reason for associating him specially with Central Asia. On the other
hand later works describe him as the spiritual son or reflex of
Amitabha. This certainly recalls the Iranian idea of the Fravashi
defined as "a spiritual being conceived as a part of a man's
personality but existing before he is born and in independence of him:
it can also belong to divine beings."[553] Although India offers in
abundance both divine incarnations and explanations thereof yet none
of these describe the relationship between a Dhyani Buddha and his
Boddhisattva so well as the Zoroastrian doctrine of the Fravashi.
S. Levi has suggested that the Bodhisattva Manjusri is of Tokharian
origin.[554] His worship at Wu-tai-shan in Shan-si is ancient and
later Indian tradition connected him with China. Local traditions also
connect him with Nepal, Tibet, and Khotan, and he is sometimes
represented as the first teacher of civilization or religion. But
although his Central Asian origin is eminently probable, I do not at
present see any clear proof of it.
The case of the Bodhisattva Kshitigarbha[555] is similar. He appears
to have been known but not prominent in India in the fourth century
A.D.: by the seventh century if not earlier his cult was flourishing
in China and subsequently he became in the Far East a popular deity
second only to Kuan-yin. This popularity was connected with his
gradual transformation into a god of the dead. It is also certain that
he was known in Central Asia[556] but whether he first became
important there or in China is hard to decide. The devotion of the
Chinese to their dead suggests that it was among them that he acquired
his great position, but his role as a guide to the next world has a
parallel in the similar benevolent activity of the Zoroastrian angel
Srosh.
One of Central Asia's clearest titles to importance in the history
of the East is that it was the earliest and on the whole the
principal source of Chinese Buddhism, to which I now turn. Somewhat
later, teachers also came to China by sea and still later, under the
Yuan dynasty, Lamaism was introduced direct from Tibet. But from at
leas
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